Dear SquareEnix/Natsuko Ishikawa - About Zenos in Endwalker *MAJOR MSQ SPOILERS*!

[NyannCat]

True. But then, why do you think that Zenos was not left dead at the end of Stormblood, the way Thordan was left dead once defeated?

Oh, yeah, exactly because of what we're talking about. Because there's more to him than just that. There would be no point to bring him back if the entirety of his character was just what people describe him as: a boring evil bad villain who just wants to kill people and its boring and not interesting and boring and evil and boring and... You get it.

There is more to his character, and I think he just tipped his toe into it at the final moments of Endwalker, despite being around since SB. Just like there was more to Garlemald and Ascians, despite them being around since 1.0, lol.

FFXIV characters and events are always under a slow cooking process to bring out the flavor in them.
Meteion was a special case because they wanted to end everything in one single expansion, so she got one single, very hurried arc, that was shared with introducing us to Elpis. But she deserved more, in my opinion.

Whoever says "I want new things", still doesn't understand FFXIV. We can have Meracydia, for example, but with it, we'll get story arcs for allagan people as well, who have been mentioned countless times, but always out of context. Every expansion is always new things, but with old things receiving context through it.

[MagiusNecros]

They weren't done with Zenos at that point. Thordan was a one and done. I still think Zenos as a character still isn't done yet. Most of Endwalker is Zenos reflecting on himself. They've had the Zodiark story arc planned out for a while.

Stormblood overall was the weakest expansion XIV has ever had IMO. It made Shadowbringers that much better by Stormblood being weak.

You know Thordan is done because he turned into pure Aether.

Zenos does not and because he is a Resonant, he cannot truly die unless they use weapons similar in potency to kill Ascians which the WoL specifically does not use in this rematch.

He will be back I think.

I also hope they use Meteion more in the future since the original Meteion survived. Or implies that they do. Very much like the character.

[Elysidelphi]

Oh, yeah, exactly because of what we're talking about. Because there's more to him than just that. There would be no point to bring him back if the entirety of his character was just what people describe him as: a boring evil bad villain who just wants to kill people and its boring and not interesting and boring and evil and boring and... You get it.

There is more to his character, and I think he just tipped his toe into it at the final moments of Endwalker, despite being around since SB. Just like there was more to Garlemald and Ascians, despite them being around since 1.0, lol.

FFXIV characters and events are always under a slow cooking process to bring out the flavor in them.
Meteion was a special case because they wanted to end everything in one single expansion, so she got one single, very hurried arc, that was shared with introducing us to Elpis. But she deserved more, in my opinion.

Whoever says "I want new things", still doesn't understand FFXIV. We can have Meracydia, for example, but with it, we'll get story arcs for allagan people as well, who have been mentioned countless times, but always out of context. Every expansion is always new things, but with old things receiving context through it.

Beautifully said, truly.

Your posts make me smile and give me hope. Thank you so much.

[Elysidelphi]

They weren't done with Zenos at that point. Thordan was a one and done. I still think Zenos as a character still isn't done yet. Most of Endwalker is Zenos reflecting on himself. They've had the Zodiark story arc planned out for a while.

Stormblood overall was the weakest expansion XIV has ever had IMO. It made Shadowbringers that much better by Stormblood being weak.

You know Thordan is done because he turned into pure Aether.

Zenos does not and because he is a Resonant, he cannot truly die unless they use weapons similar in potency to kill Ascians which the WoL specifically does not use in this rematch.

He will be back I think.

I also hope they use Meteion more in the future since the original Meteion survived. Or implies that they do. Very much like the character.

Yes, exactly! Well said, Zenos was mostly reflecting on himself throughout Endwalker. I got that feeling too. With him wandering around so much, always seeking something. Asking himself what he saw in us and what we saw in him, self-reflection. Also, when Alisaie talked to him and told him that if he didn't change he would always be alone and die without any friends, you see that it affects Zenos, he stops, he hesitates, and then he starts to reflect about what he sees in the WoL and what the WoL sees in himself. It's quite subtle, but it feels like he's growing when you see him capable of self-reflection like that. And at the start of the final duty, he gives the WoL the option to walk away from the fight. I know others in this thread have already mentioned this, but yeah, old Zenos wouldn't give that option, so even that, while appearing something tiny, is huge given that it's Zenos we're talking about.

Oh and also his armour sets. In Stormblood and parts of Shadowbringers he was in heavy armour, but slowly he changes into lighter armour, maybe that's a clue or a hint as well. Maybe the heavy armour was meant to represent his walls, his distance from others, while the lighter armour is meant to represent him lowering his walls. Might be a hint. Also, his final speech to us, the things he says, his tone of voice, they all may be hints. The fact that he says he never understood those around him, what drove them, this sounds like a very intimate confession, something I wouldn't see him saying to us in Stormblood for example.
Something else worth mentioning, before we start our duel, the way he talks to us, especially if we choose option 1 and say "That, I cannot deny", his reaction, his happiness, his voice, his smile, the way he looks at us, it feels so personal, almost like he cares about us. That we can have that effect on his state of mind. When he's usually apathetic and appears bored out of his mind, that we can make him feel so happy just by admitting that one thing and agreeing to the duel. The fact that we have that influence over him is quite something. I think it shows that he cares about us as a friend, which is why I'm hoping for his redemption.

I've also read a theory, that after the duel with Zenos, when we receive that teleportation device, apparently there's an option in-game to talk to Urianger about that and Urianger speculates that maybe Zenos himself wished for us the WoL to be teleported out of there and since we were surrounded by dynamis, that teleportation device appeared. I have not yet investigated this option on my own, but if it is true, it can have a lot of implications, one of which being that Zenos cares about us and doesn't want us to die right there and then even if it would be by his own hand, and if this wish of his is true, it may be a hint of future things to come.

[Gothicshark]

no. He had a full 2 expansions being relevant.

[HyoMinPark]

I have spent this entire thread saying over and over again that Zenos was never given proper development. If that makes him a poor character in others' eyes, so be it. In my eyes, he was always wasted potential.
I definitely don't want Zenos to be redesigned from the ground up, he already has personality traits that I'd want them to keep for him, as well as abilities, physical traits, etc.

You said that the writers could give him redeeming qualities. Qualities that he never had to begin with. And now you want him to have them for what reason? For a redemption arc. That was how you opened this thread—

So, please, please, SquareEnix, please Natsuko Ishikawa, please bring Zenos back and give him an in-depth redemption story where he can find genuine happiness, warmth, friendship and companionship at journey's end. Please show us all that even monsters are capable of overcoming their own darkness and baser instincts if given the chance. Please show us that we are strong enough, wise enough, kind enough, generous enough to truly forgive a monster and take their hand in ours in genuine affection and friendship. Please show us that after everything we've been through, after we've managed to even forgive and befriend Meteion, destroyer of worlds/stars/civilisations, we can surely forgive and befriend someone who has considered us his first and only friend for so many years.

I don’t think that Zenos was ever meant to have redeeming qualities. He was likely meant to be nothing more than the emotionless, selfish monster that he was written as. Which generally fine. It’s okay to have characters like that. The issue with him is that he has been marketed as the big bad guy for two expansions now, and has fallen flat each time. There have been better villains in the same expansion, and when you juxtapose him against the likes of Yotsuyu (Stormblood) or Fandaniel (Endwalker)—or even Meteion/Endsinger—they fulfill the main antagonist role much better than Zenos did. He was essentially a background character; bordering on a non-entity because of how little he actually affected the outcome of the story.

I am not asking for a character retcon for Zenos. I am asking for him to be developed properly, either in a redemption arc (because personality is fluid, and people can learn and change) or be kept as a villain or made into an anti-hero, but again, with actual stuff to do, with an in-depth story.

A redemption arc is impossible for him—at least, a well-written one—because he has no redeeming qualities. And to suddenly give him some would be a recharacterization of who he is. Your desire for a more in-depth story is part selfishness because of your adoration for his character, but it also heavily comes across as “I don’t want him to be just wasted potential so let’s bring him back again and make something out of him”. Which is sunk cost fallacy territory.

Besides Zenos, there are many other characters without proper developments such as Unukalhai, Cylva, Lahabrea, Elidibus, the other Sundered Ascians, etc. Just because they are old characters they shouldn't be ignored or forgotten about.

If you’ve done all the role quests from Shadowbringers, you actually see two of the above characters present within them—and both actually receive development. But since you haven’t done them, I will not spoil which ones or what their development is. Either way, some of the characters you have listed up here have been side-story characters—they were not marketed as the main antagonist for two expansions.

Lahabrea is a bit tricky since the main antagonist for ARR was portrayed to be Gaius and the Empire (carryover from 1.0), but then he pops in. And no one has ever denied that he was been underdeveloped—especially with what Emet-Selch and Elidibus got in 5.0 and 5.x, respectfully. Elidibus was never marketed as a main antagonist—he was always in the background up until the end of 5.0 where he said he was going to take things into his own hands after the fall of Emet-Selch. And the writers actually did a phenomenal job with him. In just 5.3 alone, he was made into an interesting, riveting character. When have they done this with Zenos? Again, the character that they market as the big bad for both Stormblood and Endwalker, and try to market as our foil/mirror?

Tl;dr—your comparisons are poor. You’re comparing secondary and tertiary characters (with the exception of Lahabrea in ARR and Elidibus only in post-5.0) to a main antagonist.

You can move on to new world, have new villains and still explore older characters. It isn't mutually exclusive.

If you bring back Zenos, then it would be a rehash—how can you move on when you keep bringing back the same guy who’s sole desire in life is to fight us? Unless you are proposing he turn suddenly good and join the Scions. Which, that would be a terrible fanfiction.

I'm sorry I took that out of context, but I've seen this argument quite enough: "Oh you can't redeem him because he wanted to destroy the world and kill people, and he's evil and bad".

You still aren’t seeing my full argument here—Zenos wanted to destroy the world and killed people, but he also had nothing more to his character than that. Where as both Meteion and Emet-Selch showed that they weren’t just selfish, homicidal maniacs. They weren’t utterly terrible people. You can’t redeem someone who is flat-out a terrible person—which Zenos has shown himself to be nothing more than what his father called him “a spoiled princeling”.

Meteion wanted to bring about the Final Days to spare civilizations of the hopelessness and despair that came from chasing perfection to the point of dehumanization (these two were especially present in the Omnicrons and Eas). Her motive was a very extreme answer to a “greater good”—a “it’s better for me to put them out of their misery”, if you want to think of it that way.

Emet-Selch wanted to rejoin the Shards to the Source so that Zodiark could break free of his chains, and use the remainder of those on the Source that would survive calamities to restore his world and his people—which he considered a “noble cause”. It’s a selfish motive when you view it from our perspective, but I don’t see anyone stating otherwise.

Zenos agreed to help Fandaniel usher in the Final Days for the sole purpose of making us “hungry enough” to fight him like some kind of rabid beast. That was it. There was no “greater good” motive to his actions. And he never expressed any sort of regret or even feeling really at this. All he cared about was getting his in the end.

He does not have qualities that could redeem him and make him into a Scion, for example, for that I agree, but as I have said before: he has all the personality and background to be an anti-hero. All of it.
I am not painting him as a victim, I am saying he was once a villain and he can become an anti-hero. I'm saying he has all the potential to be a great character, not a good guy, but still a great character.

I disagree. I don’t see Zenos having any of the qualities that would make an antihero an antihero. Antiheros tend to be guided by good intentions—they just fulfill them in ways that go against the conventional heroism, and tend to have a dubious moral code. How does Zenos fulfill this? He doesn’t have a moral code at all. He possesses a complete disregard for everything but for the one thing he wants: fighting us to feel good. Which it isn’t inherently bad to have a selfish villain, but you can’t say that he’s antihero potential.

An antihero example in this game would be Ysayle. She led Ishgardian heretics with the good intention of bringing to light the truth of the Dragonsong War. But she went about doing this is destructive and morally gray ways. She killed people in the name of “the greater good”. And she never tried to deny that. She acted with the best intentions in her mind—but they methods she utilized were questionable at absolute best. That’s an antihero.

If people are blindly defensive, you're being blindly dismissive of all that the character can still bring to the table. You're saying that the character should be trashed just because he didn't do anything big and meaninful in two expansions, while Ascians were the absolute same for ARR, HW and SB. Ascians were plain boring, just going "oh lord zodiark hohoho please come back lord zodiark, yes, let's summon primals to bring back lord zodiark". And then came shadowbringers and we were struck by "oh... maybe there's more to ascians than just making beast tribes summon primals".

I’m not being blindly dismissive—I just simply don’t see the need to have to wait around for 4+ years for a marketed main character (in this case, a marketed main antagonist) to be made into something that is not a non-entity. They’ve had two expansions to do something meaningful with him. They achieved a sliver of that—probably the best they can—with the ending of EW (even though I personally hated him being shoehorned in there because it ruined the emotional catharsis of the scene with Meteion for me). Why do we need to drag this out for a third one? Or for even another patch series?

You said it yourself: he did nothing in two expansions. As “boring” as you claim the Ascians were in ARR and HW (you can’t even count SB because they played no part in the main storyline—nor were they supposed to), they did more than Zenos did: between their manipulation of Gaius in ARR and Thordan in HW, they already played a bigger villain role than Zenos. He was just kind of there and was never really a huge, looming threat.

You're saying that they have "qualities that zenos does not", but you're saying it NOW, after they had their redemption arcs, lol. I don't think you'd say Ascians had development and depth back in stormblood or even half of shadowbringers. We didn't know Emet-Selch had solid, loving reasons until we reached Amaurot, the last zone of shadowbringers.

Well, first of all, you’re shifting the goal posts here—I’ve never mentioned Ascians as a whole. I mentioned Emet-Selch primarily, and briefly Elidibus and Fandaniel. You are the one mentioning Ascians as a whole. And secondly, no, those characters had not had any redemption arcs. Please point out where these redemption arcs even were. They never gave Elidibus or Emet-Selch redemption arcs. They died as villains; they never tried to redeem themselves in the eyes of our character or us, the player. Emet-Selch even admits in the ending scenes of EW that he doesn’t regret his choices, nor would he change them.

Aside from those three, the other villain I’ve talked about in here was Yotsuyu—who, again, did not get a redemption arc. Nor did she deserve one. In all honestly, the only character that has really had any sort of redemption arc in this game is Gaius—and maybe you can argue Ysayle as well. The others have lived and died as they were.

The qualities I’m talking about are qualities that would make a redemption arc believable—and I already outlined them above. I’m not going to reiterate them here.

I don't think you're being fair at your judgement when you say one character is more valid than the other just because they already had their development arcs. He's still in the middle, if not the start of his. Again, he will never be seen as an actual good guy like Ancients were, but that's not his role either.

I'm not being defensive, I just think you have the wrong perspective on the thing.

The characters I have mentioned have had development arcs much shorter than Zenos. Again, you are missing the main points of my arguments. I disagree with it being acceptable practice to wait 4+ years for a main villain to actually become a main villain, and not a side attraction.

[nighttimebunny]

I think Zenos really cares for us. It is up for player interpretation about how he cares for us whether that be as a friend or romantically but that last scene was definitely intimate and no one can tell me otherwise :3 We're the only thing that makes him happy. He thinks it's just through fighting us but what he really needs is a hug. <3

[SilverObi]

I think Zenos really cares for us. It is up for player interpretation about how he cares for us whether that be as a friend or romantically but that last scene was definitely intimate and no one can tell me otherwise :3 We're the only thing that makes him happy. He thinks it's just through fighting us but what he really needs is a hug. <3

Big "he may be a serial killer but he has gorgeous eyes" energy.

y i k e s

[nighttimebunny]

omg, people like a fictional, physically attractive, mysterious male character? hmm
anyways, i'm glad that got a reaction

[Mykhel]

*** MAJOR MSQ SPOILERS ***

So, please, please, SquareEnix, please Natsuko Ishikawa, please bring Zenos back and give him an in-depth redemption story where he can find genuine happiness, warmth, friendship and companionship at journey's end. Please show us all that even monsters are capable of overcoming their own darkness and baser instincts if given the chance. Please show us that we are strong enough, wise enough, kind enough, generous enough to truly forgive a monster and take their hand in ours in genuine affection and friendship. Please show us that after everything we've been through, after we've managed to even forgive and befriend Meteion, destroyer of worlds/stars/civilisations, we can surely forgive and befriend someone who has considered us his first and only friend for so many years.

I respectfully disagree. Zenos was the iconic "singular purpose villain." He lived for the rush of combat--the thrill of the hunt, if you will. He lacked any other characteristic--quite literally--as he stated time and time again... helping the warrior of light just to get their attention... with the ultimate goal of a rematch. I loved that he was a sidestory. The proverbial "unfinished business." He quite literally followed you to the edge of existence for his rematch--allowing the final battle to take place on his back. I thought the story served him well. He was of course disappointed he lost in the end, but you could tell he was finally "satisfied." His ending suited him.